**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - Printable Version

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**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-12

kapalama Wrote:So what's the process to move decks to the phone? Could my mom do it? If not, then it's a flaw in the program..There are plenty of programs Mom can use right now just by download and go.

I should say that I totally agree with your central premise - that there are some supposedly 'better methods' out there that aren't worth the hassle. Spending and hour configuring a program that will save you 30 minutes of study time. I too like to keep things as simple as possible.

However, anki is easy enough to get working quickly and the benefits are substantial. The main benefit is that you can load a huge variety of material and/or create your own flashcards with vocab that is targeted to your unique learning goals. A side benefit is that you can configure the information however you want (eg kanji on the front, reading on the back, or furigana on the back, or rtk story on the back... The apps that your mom could use just don't have that capability. I should know, before I found Anki, I downloaded lots of those apps, but something was always lacking and I never ended up using them. Mostly because I wanted vocabulary in both kanji and kana, the same vocabulary used in a sentence with and english translation and native audio. Maybe there's an app with this now with a decent interface, but I went through a lot a few years ago and spent more time app shopping than studying.

I should also note that your mom probably could get anki working on the desktop just fine. Adults probably feel better about studying at a desk anyway. It's just that if she wanted to study on her smartphone it would take a few extra steps that would probably put her over the edge.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-12

kapalama Wrote:Massive immersion. I spent, for instance, 8 hours talking with customers and co-workers today, and none of it was in English. I don't speak English at home. At work, it's cold approaching strangers, so I have to get the pronunciation right, and the approach right to properly engage without appearing too Japanese, nor too 'not Japanese'. Japanese on vacation want to laugh, and want to feel interesting, so I have a quiver of approaches to accomplish those things, learned by trying out whatever 芸人 taught me.

I'm still curious about your beginning phase. Presumably you didn't go straight to conversing with customers 8 hours on your first day studying the language. How did you get to the point you could converse effectively?

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - kapalama - 2015-08-12

yogert909 Wrote:I'm still curious about your beginning phase. Presumably you didn't go straight to conversing with customers 8 hours on your first day studying the language. How did you get to the point you could converse effectively?

Responded in a new thread:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=223043#pid223043

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - kapalama - 2015-08-12

yogert909 Wrote:I should also note that your mom probably could get anki working on the desktop just fine. Adults probably feel better about studying at a desk anyway. It's just that if she wanted to study on her smartphone it would take a few extra steps that would probably put her over the edge.

I am using mom as a metaphor for me not wanting to be the IT department for people I know, in a lot of senses.

The reason I am after a turn key approach is 'bitter' personal experience with, in my case learning Kanji.

I tried to learn Kanji in the "learn them as you approach them" way so many people who have not encountered RTK think works best. I got nowhere, because that system is functionless for actual learning. Much later, I somehow found RTK the book, but burned out when I realized I could not come up with useful stories once he stopped providing them. Somehow found this site, and BAM! It all clicked.

For everyday review, I love the idea of SRS, but I don't have reliable access to the internet (over the span of the years) to use most of the time, so the site's SRS, iKnow and the like are kind of out. I would love if Anki could be purchased on the phone, then in-app, you could download the decks you linked. Or better yet if the app was sold in flavors. Buy Anki Nukemarine Flavor, and bam, it's ready to go. Buy it another way, and Bam! Japanese speaker could use the same materials to learn effective English, maybe

Friends (E and J) ask about what they could use to study, and if I could turn them loose on a program, then I could get actual Japanese (English) competent workers. Bilinguals are in めちゃめっちゃ short supply.

Two cases of 'Japanese speaking"

Case one: "studied Japanese at college" speakers can't carry a conversation, and have horrible accents. And work becomes conversation school for them, because the Japanese want to meet them halfway, since it's clear that they are trying, and then work gets stuck in mud, because the college trained Japanese speakers cannot actually effectively move a group of Japanese from Point A to Point B, because.. Actually why I don't know college trained Japanese speakers are so incompetent at speaking. I tested out of ~3 years of Japanese by registering for the classes, talking to the teacher the first day, and showing up for final exam time. I honestly do not know what happens in a college level Japanese class. I know the end result is ineffective Japanese though. And the books are horrible and full of Japanese that no one ever uses in speech, and everyday Japanese is nowhere in the books.

Case two: "learn as they go" people hack the fsck out of basic constructions, and have horrible accents. This also stops the work dead, becuase the customers again are trying to meet the attempting to speak Japanese person halfway.

Japanese speaking English case: The Japanese (almost all younger women) cannot speak English, and the little they get by with is completely dependent on people who are trying to hit on them giving them way too much slack so they never improve. They cannot effective move information from me to a English only driver

So what I want in a Japanese (English) program is turn-key so I can hand it over to people with an iPhone, and know that they are actually doing productive work. It has to run on a Phone though, so they can show me their progress, and I can answer questions. But I also have no interest in doing tech support, and my experience shows that (at least at one time) iOS Anki was a computer tinkerer's toy, not an effective use of time for study.

It may have changed.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - Bokusenou - 2015-08-12

I don't know about the iOS version of Anki, but in the Android version (AnkiDroid), if you download shared decks (a lot can be found here: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/ ), you can open them in AnkiDroid, and it will load them. Then you can use them offline. You can also create new decks, all without touching a computer. I'm guessing the iOS version is similar.

There's also Memrise, which is like a simpler alternative to Anki. I found it a little too limiting, but then again, I like to really customize the things I use. It looks like Memrise will let you download decks for offline use, but you need to do it for each deck separately, unlike Anki where everything is usable offline by default.

If you learn best without SRS though, then that's great! I also know what you mean about not wanting to be the IT department for people you know (as someone who often has to take that role too).

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-12

Yea, if you are looking for something to turn other people onto, you might want to look at anki again. It sounds like anki got a lot more user friendly than when you used it back when. I just took a look and I believe you can download shared decks via a smartphone now. At least I was able to browse them on my iphone app - I did everything except clicking download. I really like anki, but memrise seems to do a lot of the same things, although not as customizable as anki.

AS far as I know a complete turnkey Japanese course doesn't exist. I have thought about making my own master anki collection of everything you would need to get to N3 or so, but since I haven't passed N3, I think that's a little premature. I have seen teachers of various subjects create their own anki decks to distribute to their class with everything configured. I think this is the route to go, but reasonable people could argue.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - ktcgx - 2015-08-12

kapalama Wrote:Two cases of 'Japanese speaking"

Case one: "studied Japanese at college" speakers can't carry a conversation, and have horrible accents. And work becomes conversation school for them, because the Japanese want to meet them halfway, since it's clear that they are trying, and then work gets stuck in mud, because the college trained Japanese speakers cannot actually effectively move a group of Japanese from Point A to Point B, because.. Actually why I don't know college trained Japanese speakers are so incompetent at speaking. I tested out of ~3 years of Japanese by registering for the classes, talking to the teacher the first day, and showing up for final exam time. I honestly do not know what happens in a college level Japanese class. I know the end result is ineffective Japanese though. And the books are horrible and full of Japanese that no one ever uses in speech, and everyday Japanese is nowhere in the books.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. University admin/execs do not make it easy for lecturers/course coordinators to be good teachers these days. They're all adopting a 'bums on seats' approach which prioritises income over quality education.

2. Terrible instruction methods based on rote drilling of language items. Take a look at the ever popular Genki textbook. It's made up of ~90% drills for the target language. Even the "pair work" sections are 90% the textbook asking you to drill a particular piece of TL.

3. Not much research on how to teach Japanese, as compared to say, English. 80% or more of it is still based around grammar-translation or audio-lingual ideas on language teaching. I don't know what goes on in terms of research into teaching Japanese in Japanese language medium journals, but given my experience in Japan, I'm wiling to bet a reasonable sum on it being also focussed on GT or AL methods.

4. Poor linking of research to actual useful classroom applications. It can be difficult as a teacher to apply what has been shown to be effective to your classroom. Often research does not contain concrete suggestions for ways for teachers to apply the findings, and making the link from an airy-fairy idea to a concrete classroom practice is not as easy or straightforward as it may sound.

5. Don't underestimate the amount of time and effort it actually takes to design a course from scratch. You're easily looking at a year or more, and no university is willing to pay a teacher to do that, when there are "effective" "off-the-shelf" textbooks available. Heavy sarcasm on the effective, just so you know.

For me, I'm still young enough, still burned by my own Japanese learning experiences enough, and still passionate about doing the right thing by our students enough, to attempt to make major changes to the way we teach Japanese at my university. But it's going to take time. And it's a lot of pressure to a) go softly so as not to get anyone's back up, and b) to make sure not to get anything wrong for the students.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - kapalama - 2015-08-12

Yeah and the problem is that the entrenched Japanese professors are just not going to change, because they bought into the whole "mysterious Japan" nonsense. I am convinced that part of the problem is that English teaching in Japan is so horrible that it convinced Japanese people to think that simple competency is too much to ask for in Language education.

And yet, after a single year of High School French, and people go off and do a year abroad with no English support system whatsoever.

Are you faculty/staff at your school? If so, can you please make a difference? If we would just make character study RTK style a self study prerequisite for Chinese and Japanese so the teachers could just start right in with real Japanese straight from 女性セブン for written material, and real conversation about that. (I always thought that People magazine would be the best textbook for a English class focused at Japanese. It's got the 憧れ movie stars, is written in plain language, and has engaging content with lots of pictures.) Plus they'd always have something to read at dentist's offices/ramen shops.

(Man, I am still running through my head all the times I left someone with "2 years of College Japanese" with, say, a group of Japanese people and bentos, and come back two hours later to see the guy over in the corner talking to the one girl who can put two sentences of English together, and a bunch of flies buzzing around the cardboard box with all the untouched bentos still in it. It's work, dude! Or come back to a pissed off American saying "They won't listen to what I am telling them" and a bunch of confused Japanese people who cannot figure what the deal is with the 八つ当たり gaijin. Aren't gaijin supposed to be フェミニスト?

In that sense, most people who know essentially no Japanese are sometimes more effective because they focus on the result of getting things done, and stop thinking about the process. I have seen people do briefings completely in English get more across than some "College Japanese" people.)

キレてる？キレてる？ちょっとね.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - ktcgx - 2015-08-12

I'm not staff, I'm still in my first year of post grad. However, I have already put together a handout of different ways to learn kanji (because yes, even though Heisig's is the most efficient, a lot of people can't handle the splitting up of the readings and meaning, or have not enough imagination to learn them this way), and **drum roll** convinced the department to buy over 200 new books for our students, including 3 sets of graded readers (reberu betsu, nihongo tadoku, and the sendai set), and I'll be speaking to our students about the benefits of ER for their language acquisition, and showing them what we now have available. Over the summer (it's winter here), I'll be working with our Japanese dept librarian to upload all the books into an online reading list so we can get feedback from students on them, as well as self-reporting info on how many they are reading etc.

But my main research this semester is into looking at Genki, Yokoso, and Nakama from a student-centred perspective (mainly focussing on whether or not they are fostering learner autonomy, engagement, responsibility, and creativity, short answer no, but Nakama does include some elements), and then taking Genki (the textbook we use) and looking at ways to adapt and supplement it to meet better language teaching standards.

My masters thesis project next year I haven't decided yet, but for my phd, I'm seriously thinking about developing a new JFL textbook.

And yes, speaking of people learning other languages, reading studies where, for example, 1st semester German students were already reading full native novels by the end of it frustrates me so much. Yes, Japanese has kanji, but given that even by the end of 3 years, even an A+ student would not be able to read a newspaper, novel, manga, watch anime, drama, movies etc, is really, really wrong imo.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-12

ktcgx Wrote:And yes, speaking of people learning other languages, reading studies where, for example, 1st semester German students were already reading full native novels by the end of it frustrates me so much. Yes, Japanese has kanji, but given that even by the end of 3 years, even an A+ student would not be able to read a newspaper, novel, manga, watch anime, drama, movies etc, is really, really wrong imo.

I don't know about German, but I've read that Spanish and English share as much as 60% overlapping cognates. Combine that with the same alphabet and similar grammar and it's no wonder learners of languages can get a command of native material much sooner - you're starting out knowing 2/3 of the language! Japanese, you're starting out with a handful of loanwords, completely different grammar, and completely new character set.

I agree in part though. I was looking into some readings from a 3rd year japanese class at MIT and was surprised how basic they where.

I'm wondering since you're in the field of designing something better, what is your ideal learning method? I know you mention extensive reading, but when do you introduce native reading, what would you start out reading, and how do you get to the point of reading in the first place? Would you just start with enough vocab and grammar to get through a children's book and build form there or something different? I'm curious what course you'd design.

Thanks

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - ktcgx - 2015-08-12

I think that the Spanish cognate level would be well below 60%. I think for German it's around 20-30%. Combined with grammar which is quite different to English, unless you're familiar with older style English (say, 1800s and earlier).

BUT

If they have read an entire novel in 12 weeks, and at the end of 3 years, we can't, that's a serious issue in Japanese language education.

As for your questions, that's something I'm in the process of figuring out. They're points which require a lot of thought. For example, given the differences in alphabets, when *is* the best time to start students reading? I can tell you now, my gut reaction is the rather unhelpful 'as soon as possible'. It's unhelpful because it's too vague, right?

At this point, I am considering piloting ER programmes for our students for my masters, and seeing what hits the sweet spot between 'accountability (both students and teachers to admin)', 'responsibility', 'ease of use/understanding' etc. It will all need to be thought about very thoroughly. It's something I'm very into, but at this point I've got my hands full with 3 research papers and a translation project this semester.

I would say, at this point, all research points to 'intensive' reading of texts that is the usual method of teaching Japanese reading at the university level having absolutely no effect on language acquisition. So I really hope we can move away from that, though the way the uni admin side is set up, it's easier to 'prove' your worth if you are literally sitting in front of a class teaching, rather than being held accountable for actual learning, which often means the teacher must step back, and allow the students to do it for themselves, which makes the uni admin think, well, wtf are we paying this person for then?

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-12

ktcgx Wrote:At this point, I am considering piloting ER programmes for our students for my masters, and seeing what hits the sweet spot between 'accountability (both students and teachers to admin)', 'responsibility', 'ease of use/understanding' etc. It will all need to be thought about very thoroughly. It's something I'm very into, but at this point I've got my hands full with 3 research papers and a translation project this semester.

I've often thought why wasn't it done like that - just A/B different methods like you do websites and see what sticks..? I'm guessing students don't want to pay for being treated as guinea pigs or the university doesn't want to admit they don't already have the best method. But if you had 1,000s of universities trying out different methods and comparing the results, you'd have a much better system than we have now, one would think. At least nobody would be arguing about such broad topics like which is better, intensive reading or extensive reading. Or at least that what it looks like from a distance. Maybe it's just me, I have a fetish for measuring and comparing things.

Thanks for outlining your thoughts. My gut feels that you are headed in the right direction, but this is coming from someone who hasn't learned a single language(yet!), so take that for what it's worth. Anyway, it's good hearing from someone in the trenches.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - ktcgx - 2015-08-12

Lol, well, you have, your native one Wink

Where are you up to in learning Japanese? I can give you some pointers grounded in language acquisition research, if you want.

Personally, in terms of JFL education, I would chuck the whole thing out, and start again, but that isn't an option unfortunately, so...

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-12

ktcgx Wrote:Lol, well, you have, your native one

Oh yes, I've almost forgotten Wink

Thanks for the offer! I've been doing RTK and Core and Tae Kim. I've gotten most of the N3 kanji and vocab and 2/3 of the way through Tae Kim, so my vocab is around 2k and I know the RTK keywords for around 750 kanji.

My plan is to finish out the N3 vocab(just because I like finishing what I've started and I might take N3 in december.) and then start native material in less than a month. I've got a tonari no totoro subs2srs deck waiting for me in anki and I will probably scan the subs for words that I don't know and pre-learn(srs) them before going through the deck then watching without subs a few times. Depending on how that goes, I'll either choose a few more animes or try out the same routine on a drama. I should mention, I'll be choosing form material where I have already watched dubbed or with english subs. I'm also considering doing some reading of parallel texts if I find something I want to read. My requirements dictate that I have to do most of my study on my phone until I get to the point I can watch un-subbed anime and dramas and essentially start mono-lingual learning.

The reason I plan to pre-study vocabulary is that I feel learning vocab in isolation is more efficient than drilling sentences. I've done both ways and words are the way to go for my brain. Once I know all the words, reading just goes so smoothly and compliments the vocabulary study while getting used to grammar. I just can't imagine reading through a text and using a pop-up dictionary is efficient as pre-learning a targeted list of vocabulary. Of course a pop-up dictionary is nice for reinforcing and checking words I've already learned. I'm especially curious what you think about this vocabulary pre-learning idea. I'm also curious about what you think about grammar study. My gut says learn grammar from reading and listening and then study later as a refresher. Is there any research on this?

Anyway, thanks for any ideas you might have.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - ktcgx - 2015-08-12

Hmm, ok, so it sounds like you're definitely an upper beginner.

My advice:

1. Don't wait to get into 'native materials', start reading now. As in, jump straight on whatever online book ordering service you prefer, or look at your local library's booklist, and start reading Japanese graded readers and children's books. Start reading books at or below your reading level, even if that means starting at level 0. When your reading skills develop, you can move up to books just above your level. You need to read for at least 30 mins per day, and make sure what you are reading is *interesting*, and it will take time for the benefits to become apparent, but after 8 months, your acquisition should have improved at twice the rate compared to what it would be at if you were not reading. Prioritise reading over other native media, as it will improve your listening skills too. Here are some links for you:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_ime_c_0_9/378-2892832-8457006?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%E3%83%AC%E3%83%99%E3%83%AB%E5%88%A5%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E5%A4%9A%E8%AA%AD%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%83%96%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC&sprefix=%E3%82%8C%E3%81%B9%E3%82%8B%E3%81%B9%E3%81%A4%E3%81%AB%E3%81%BB%E3%82%93%E3%81%94%2Caps%2C439
[you can buy these from amazon.com and other retailers, but the price is way cheaper from here, afaik]

http://tadoku.org/learners/book_ja/reference [books for native speakers organised into graded reader levels]

http://tadoku.org/teachers/order [another set of graded readers]

2. Don't "drill".
It's better for you to get meaningful input and produce meaningful output. So, my advice here is to, A, start reading, and B, instead of spending time practising conjugations or doing substitution drills, create situations where you output is forced to be meaningful. So if you want to practise the past tense, write an actual diary of your week, for instance.

3. Vocab
Don't spend too much time on anki, as research shows that after the first 2000 most common word families, words are better learned in context through reading. Reading/listening(watching) will also help to cement the vocab collocations and the 'flavours' of particular words.

4. Maybe I'll add more later as they come to me.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - CreepyAF - 2015-08-12

kapalama Wrote:So what's the process to move decks to the phone? Could my mom do it? If not, then it's a flaw in the program..There are plenty of programs Mom can use right now just by download and go.

How to use Anki on a mobile device:

Step 1: Open web browser
Step 2: Type in URL ankiweb.net
Step 3: Login and study

Anki in the web browser is the Universal Standard of Mom's everywhere, and cheap-o's like me who won't shell out ~$25 for the iOS app.

And yes, this method assumes you've already added a deck on your desktop, but that isn't rocket surgery either.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - RawrPk - 2015-08-12

^ agreed. Before I switched to an Android phone, I used Ankiweb for my mobile reviewing needs. I just downloaded/created/edited on the desktop app. There is no need to spend $25 on the iOS app unless you liked editing/creating cards. I have the Android app and I still treat it like I did Ankiweb.

ktcgx Wrote:And yes, speaking of people learning other languages, reading studies where, for example, 1st semester German students were already reading full native novels by the end of it frustrates me so much. Yes, Japanese has kanji, but given that even by the end of 3 years, even an A+ student would not be able to read a newspaper, novel, manga, watch anime, drama, movies etc, is really, really wrong imo.

As someone who has taken Japanese college courses for 2 years, I can say that I do find it frustrating that I can't dive into native material with ease as opposed to other languages like Spanish, where by the 2nd year students can easily watch telenovelas and follow along (my Spanish teacher in high school played native videos and we were to follow fine).

I felt like in my community college, the real Japanese learning didn't start UNTIL the 2nd year (103-104 course) as opposed to the 1st year (101-102). First class was a grind of just orally memorizing dialogs in the textbook and reciting it in front of class. The most "Japanese" learning we did was learn kana and less than 20 漢字...and kana wasn't introduced until HALFWAY into the course! Dx It was torture for me because I had learned kana on my own and the class was going by really slow.

I loved my 2nd year courses because we focused on reading, making oral presentations in Japanese, and grammar. My school only has 4 Japanese courses available so after that I simply got "stuck". I've been trying to self study ever since (last course was 2-3 years ago) but you know...life lol

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-13

Hey ktcgx, thanks so much for taking the time to give me a personalized syllabus =D I'm gonna give it a try. I was wondering if you know of any graded reader of type thing I can do from my phone as that's where 99% of my study happens. I could carry a book around, but I feel that would get much more done on my phone as it's just always right with me. What do you think about aozora bunko materials...too dated? How about stuff like the little prince in Japanese? Thanks again!

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - ktcgx - 2015-08-13

The books I posted are really thin, they're not 'book books', they're about 5-15 pages long. Especially at level 0. But even level 4 is only like 35 pages long on average Smile

As far as electronic resources go, I can't give advice, since I hate reading anything on a screen, so I've never looked for anything like that. I think CureDolly goes in for that stuff, though, so maybe they'll pop up and give advice, but you could always try their website, and see if they have any useful links.

I don't know if I've heard of Aozora Bunko, but I don't think there's particularly any problem with "datedness" per se, I would say it is more important to read something that is interesting to you.

Is the little prince an English text translated into Japanese? That kind of thing isn't a problem, but it's very important not to be reading above your level in the beginning, and even once your reading skills get really good, to not be reading very much above your level. You shouldn't be struggling, you shouldn't be 'needing' a dictionary (though, for me, using a dictionary to confirm the meaning of maybe one word per page isn't a big, I think, others are more firm on it), and especially you should not be translating in your head, you should be able to comprehend, by and large, what's going on without ever stepping outside Japanese. So in the beginning, you may have to spend longer at the lower levels than you expected. But that's fine. It's not a race Wink

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - Bokusenou - 2015-08-13

@Yogert One of the things I did when I was around your level was to listen to fairy tales I had read in English (Think Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc) on Fanta Jikan (http://fantajikan.com/lineup/abroad/index.html), and then find the text on Aozora Bunko.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - Danchan - 2015-08-13

With the French/Spanish comparisons, we are talking about people who are English speakers learning another language written using basically the same writing script, with a shared linguistic and cultural history. It's never going to be as easy for Chinese or Japanese.

But...

University courses on Chinese or Japanese typically don't teach people how to actually go about acquiring a language. Actually, the situation is even worse than that, because this lack of instruction on acquisition, when combined with the habits and attitudes which are instilled through content focused, level-based "lessons" organised around sections of dialogue, word lists and exercises can work against people acquiring a new language. Textbooks aren't the devil, and structured learning can be very helpful. But if you never learn how to cope with a lack of structure you become so acclimatized to nailing down grammar or vocabulary that has been isolated and prepared for you that you never come to feel confident with real living language in all its fluidity and nuances.

Take for example Japanese learners who want to learn English; There are a million billion books -about- English pumped out by the domestic publishing industry, yet so few people who actually listen to or read real English. You have people who have spend hundreds or even thousands of hours learning English, and yet don't own a single actual book. It's too intimidating. That novel must be lesson number #2000, and I'm only at lesson #75!

It works out great for sellers of learner based books. You get a bunch of vocabulary and package it with some pictures and a CD with voice recordings. Done. How else will you learn everyday words like "crack" or "mold" or "rust" if it isn't packaged first in a book!? Because we have been indoctrinated into this learning paradigm it often doesn't occur to people that you could first become fluent, and -then- go about fleshing out your knowledge of these kinds of words from the inside. You want to try and cut up this giant forest of language bit by bit and take it away with you, instead of learning to walk on in, accepting you will get a bit lost and coming to see it as an opportunity to notice new things.

To the OP, my oversimplified guide to learning Japanese and Chinese would be something like...

1. Believe you can do it.
2. Do a little study each day. Then do a little more. Habitualize frequent contact. Anki is good for this I think. But to each his own.
3. Use material created for learners only initially, and as little as possible. Concrete example sentences are good. With sound is better. Something like Lingq.com is very helpful here I think.
4. Skip doing exercises and anything you find boring. If you want a challenge, better try writing on lang-8, or talking with a Skype buddy.
5. Start looking at, listening to, and collecting native material from day one.
6. Listening lots is very important.
7. Enjoy the journey.
8. Be patient.
9. Don't stop.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - kapalama - 2015-08-13

ktcgx Wrote:I don't know if I've heard of Aozora Bunko,

Way back in the early for Japan days of the internet a Japanese guy started getting all public domain works he could up in text form, and now the group as a whole at Aozora Buno is part of extended group working against the sort of copyright that stifles public discourse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aozora_Bunko

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - buonaparte - 2015-08-13

How to navigate http://www.aozora.gr.jp/
explained in English:
http://nihongo-e-na.com/eng/site/id101.html

You can get Aozora Bunko formatted contemporary works on torrent sites.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - jcdietz03 - 2015-08-13

初耳です。

Quote:You can get Aozora Bunko formatted contemporary works on torrent sites.

That's of little help. I need more specific instructions like: Search Youtube for 実況プレイ to find let's plays. You probably should add the name of the game you're interested in to the search, too, and it's better if you put the game name in Japanese.

Do I just search 青空文庫[name of work] ?? How do you say "formatted" in Japanese?

And the next thing I would like is the name of:
1) One of the free ones that you liked
2) One of the free ones recommended for its low reading level

Is there already a thread for this Aozora Bunko resource somewhere? I searched and found these:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=8059 (dead)
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=220535#pid220535

The "novel reader tool" from cb4960 works with Aozora-formatted stuff, right?

A long time ago, forum users were talking about "innocent novels" and I had no idea what they were talking about.

**Your** Guide to Learning Japanese - yogert909 - 2015-08-13

jcdietz03 Wrote:A long time ago, forum users were talking about "innocent novels" and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Frustrating, I know but I believe that was the point Wink